philosophy do not vary. He uses the same imagery,
the same conceits, the same abstract ideas for both sexes, and adapts
the leading motive which he had invented for a person of one sex to a
person of the other when it suits his purpose. In our absolute
incapacity to fix any amative connection upon Michelangelo, or to link
his name with that of any contemporary beauty, we arrive at the
conclusion, strange as this may be, that the greater part of his
love-poetry is a scholastic exercise upon emotions transmuted into
metaphysical and mystical conceptions. Only two pieces in the long
series break this monotony by a touch of realism. They are divided by
a period of more than thirty years. The first seems to date from an
early epoch of his life:--

_What joy hath yon glad wreath of flowers that is
Around her golden hair so deftly twined,
Each blossom pressing forward from behind,
As though to be the first her brows to kiss!
The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss,
That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind:
And that fair woven net of gold refined
Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness!
Yet still more blissful seems to me the band,
Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring,
And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace:
Yea, and the belt, to such as understand,
Bound round her waist, saith: Here I'd ever cling!
What would my arms do in that girdle's place?_

The second can be ascribed with probability to the year 1534 or 1535.
It is written upon the back of a rather singular letter addressed to
him by a certain Pierantonio, when both men were in Rome together:--

_Kind to the world, but to itself unkind,
A worm is born, that, dying noiselessly,
Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be
In its true worth alone by death divined.
Would I might die for my dear lord to find
Raiment in my outworn mortality;
That, changing like the snake, I might be free
To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined!
Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays,
Woven and wrought into a vestment fair,
Around yon breast so beauteous in such bliss!
All through the day thou'd have me! Would I were
The shoes that bear that burden! when the ways
Were wet with rain, thy feet I then should kiss!_

I have already alluded to the fact that we can trace two widely
different styles of writing in Michelangelo's poetry. Some of his
sonnets, l